Istanbul at the crossroads

The
recent announcement of a series of huge infrastructural projects to be
parachuted onto the northern area of Istanbul – a third airport, a new city for
millions on the coast of the Black Sea, a new canal to mitigate the pressure on
The Bosporus, and a new highway connecting all these projects to Europe and
Asia, which will cross the Bosporus over a new, third bridge – raises questions
about the soundness of the city’s sustainability policy. Unless ecological
interests will be integrated into the new plans, natural resources, especially
sweet water supplies, will come under serious threat.

NIGHTMARE
OR EXAMPLE?

Will Istanbul become the next metropolitan nightmare, or will it become
an inspiring example?It seems that Istanbul, yet again, is facing a
decisive moment in its long history as a major city. The choice facing it is a
basic one: development toward a metropolis like so many others, or development
toward an attractive metropolis that, unlike the Mumbais, Jakartas and Nairobis
of this world, stays ahead of the
problems and turns Istanbul into a unique twenty-first-century metropolis that
succeeds in finding a proper balance between continuing urbanization, rising
living standards for all and a healthy environment.

PUBLIC
DECLARATION

In a public declaration, ISTANBUL at the crossroads, the curators of the 5th
and 6th IABR, and the curator of the 1st Istanbul Design
Biennial call on all stakeholders to form a new coalition in Istanbul. A coalition
of institutions, individuals and businesses willing to look at the concerted
human, economic and ecological interests in working toward the quality of life
in the future. This coalition will not only have to operate from a position of
comment, will not only have to manifest itself politically and intellectually,
it will also have to take charge of planning itself where necessary: it will
have to actively participate in making
city, starting with the development of a dynamic action plan for the
metropolis that presents an alternative to the existing plans.

The signatories propose that the line
initiated by the plan for Arnavutköy as developed by the IABR Atelier Istanbul,
in which ostensibly irreconcilable conflicts between urbanization and
preservation of the water basins are harmonized in a productive and ultimately
beneficial way, be taken seriously as a model of what is concretely feasible in
Istanbul.